


All Beings Have a Purpose

by theunknownfate



Category: Lady in the Water, Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Kinkmeme, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-05 06:48:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1809199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theunknownfate/pseuds/theunknownfate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Watchmen/Lady in the Water AU. Written for this kinkmeme prompt: </p><p>Have someone see a narf or have to protect one from a scrunt, or just have to make sense of the story from bits and pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The storm was brewing overhead, about to open the sky. Rorschach was patrolling the docks when he caught a glimpse of long hair and pale limbs in the water. His stomach fell until he remembered how resigned to atrocities he was, and he made his way carefully down to the water’s edge. There was no hurry. He couldn’t save her now, only avenge her. But instead of a limp and bobbing corpse, the girl was standing up, staring at him with ink-dark eyes. 

The water lapped around chest and her wet hair clung enough to keep her decent, but he could tell she was naked. She smiled faintly and shyly, and it slapped all the air out of him. Too solid to be a ghost, too otherworldly to be natural, she wasn't beautiful as he recognized it, but she was something like his mask. She was real and unreal, frightening and wonderful, perfect and utterly wrong, both things without mixing. 

“Do you feel it?” she whispered and he stood frozen, pinned by a thousand needles. All his layers were no defense. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. “It will be you that changes this world,” she said. Her smile turned sad. “You won’t see it happen, but it will be you that sets it in motion. You are so important, and better loved than you know.”

Then she sank like a stone, vanishing so completely that if he hadn’t still prickled and ached, he would’ve been sure he had imagined it.


	2. Chapter 2

It passed over Archie like a cresting wave, the shadow of wings blocking out the moon over the clouds. It was a bird, a bird so big that it could've snatched Archie out of the air and carried it away. Dan saw the gleam of talons over the storm, had a heartbeat to register the shape of the head as it turned into the clouds and plunged into the rain. Wind and water plumed off it, making it into a ghost or some avenging spirit of the maelstrom. 

He remembered his childhood books about rocs and thunderbirds and Tolkien's Gwaihir and Thorondor. The name meant Lord of Eagles and he was following before he could even remind himself that that could be a very bad idea. He lost sight of it in the downpour for a moment, but the flicker as it blocked out the skyscraper lights it flew past caught his eye and he was able to see it as it swooped low over the docks. 

The pictures from the old books had the giant birds carrying off people and elephants and boats. What could this one want? He saw it home in on something white in the water. The wings beat back, the talons stretched out, and he sucked in a breath of sympathy for whatever it was. What was it?

The bird caught up its target as delicately as if it had plucked a leaf from the breeze and then it was gone. Dan saw the water lashed back from the force of the wings and then, just a glimpse of what it held. Was it a fish? A mermaid? He had only a flash of pale skin and dark eyes and then the bird's true speed unleashed. It was gone in the next flicker of lightning, leaving him gaping after it. It had happened so quickly that he was already wondering if he had really seen anything. He cast around for a landmark to try and pin down the location if nothing else. The first thing he saw on the ground was a familiar figure, resolute against the wind and head turned in the direction the bird had gone. 

Relief washed over him. If Rorschach had seen it, it couldn't have been imaginary. If they had both seen it, they probably weren't insane and even if they were, crazy liked company. He swung Archie around to pick his partner up and get him out of the rain.


	3. Chapter 3

Adrian knew he was hallucinating because there weren't big animals in Antarctica. He had pushed himself too far this time, fasted too long, meditated too deeply. The vision looked like a child crumpled there on the ice. It couldn't be real because there were no children here, and even if there were, they wouldn't be naked outside. The posture looked as if it had been running across the snow when it had fallen, toward Karnak, away from the ocean. He wouldn't have noticed at all if it hadn't been for the splash of color, a smear of red around her, already fading to the color of pink roses as the snow covered it. As the color vanished, something else took shape.

It looked like a shrub growing out of the snow and that was another impossibility. Nothing grew here, especially that fast. Maybe it was symbolic, some message his subconscious was sending him. A tree growing from a frozen wasteland, that had to mean something positive didn't it? Perhaps a good omen for his plan to save the world, to bring life out of the cold misery it was trapped in. But as he watched, the tree took another shape, something that wasn't obscure at all in its meaning, something his brain recognized all the way to its lizard core as a predator.

It wasn't sleek and beautiful like a cat, wasn't huge and powerful like a bear. This was something from primal forests of the mind, something that ran and howled and caught with sharp teeth. It moved and looked up at him and there was the bright red again, burning in its eyes. Fear stabbed into his belly. His visions had never struck him this way. He had always found inspiration and validation in them before. Was this a warning? The wolf-like shadow seized up the child-like shape that was now almost invisible in the snow and leaped away into the dark with it. The pink splotch where it had been was quickly erased by the wind and snow. 

Adrian was left shaken. He had been afraid of that creature, and an unmistakable sensation of loss permeated him. If the child had made it to him (and of course it was coming to him) something about this would be very different. Some connection could have been made, some missing piece would've fit into place, but now it was gone. Something important had been destroyed. Why would the child have attempted the trip if the message wasn't important? What message was worth the little one's life? What had it represented that needed his attention so badly? What part of his psyche was desperate enough not to know to manifest as a monster and kill it? This would take some thought, but now reality needed his attention too. 

He tried to open his eyes and end the vision. He felt another unpleasant stab when nothing happened and then he blinked. His eyes had already been open. He looked again, but if there had been anything really there, there was no sign of it now. He unfolded his legs and stood up. It was troubling, he admitted to himself, but he had work to do.


	4. Chapter 4

Eddie always remembered the storms in Vietnam as worse than in New York, but this one might've been a winner. There, the whole jungle would go into motion. The sounds of wind and rain drowned you, and the whole green world went fluid. You couldn't hear over it, or see through it, it was dangerous and ethereal. It had been one of the few things that had unnerved him over there. He hadn't liked it. 

He didn't like this either. Squinting out over the city from his window, the buildings didn't sway and swirl around him. They stood as rigid as ever, but it just made the storm battering them seem that much wilder. It made him remember. 

He had been on lookout. It wasn't really his duty, no one dared give him orders, but it had gotten him out of a briefing and he was only staying put to stay dry anyway. All around him, the jungle churned. It had him on edge and he almost fired at the flicker of red that shot by. Maybe a bird, but the slap of feet in puddles alerted him again. 

He scanned the jungle for any sign, then something else raced by. He didn't see it, but the underbrush waked out behind it in a straight line instead of the storm's spirals. Whatever it was, it was headed for the river too. He stood up for a better view and saw the girl. She was not one of the local kids turning tricks for American dollars. Willow-thin and pale as bone, she almost glowed and her red hair flew out behind her in waves. She wasn't military either with a mane like that.

She wasn't creeping home with her pay either. She ran like her life depended on it, not looking back. Whatever was after gained steadily through the underbrush. Had she stolen something? Her arms were bare and her hands were empty. Information then? The rifle was against his shoulder. He could pick her off any time. 

She didn't slow down for the river, running three strides in before diving. When she came up for air, she would be an easy target. He wouldn't have to explain or clean up if the river carried her away.

His finger tightened on the trigger while he thought about it. Then, a low growl over his shoulder made him freeze. There was something behind him and he almost laughed. This was ridiculous. He tilted his head enough to peek. It was a clump of trees, but it had a face. His first thought was that it was some kind of monkey, but it had vines and branches growing out of it. It also had teeth, because it bared them and growled again. It wasn't looking at him, but past him to the river. 

It was even more unearthly than the girl. He was off the map and here there be monsters and he could feel it in his gut that whatever it was it was worse than him. Something in the world had just changed. This thing was part of it. He was not. He could spin and fire and kill it before it came at him, but then there was one in another tree. It jumped from a branch, vanishing into the canopy. A third moved on the other side and when he looked back, the first one was gone. 

The girl never resurfaced, but the trees and underbrush on the bank went crazy. Something was thrashing around and then something screamed like it was being pulled apart. It wasn't human, but it was worse than the storm. He hurried back to camp. One of the government eggheads was there, standing in the rain, staring down the path the girl had taken with a stupid look on his face. Eddie slapped his shoulder to snap him out of it and bullied him into buying them both a drink. He didn't know what had just happened, honestly didn't want to, but it was going to take a little help to forget it. 

Years later, most of it had faded. He remembered something in the trees, but it had faded into everything else he had seen and done. He rubbed the scar on his jaw and lightning flared. He turned away from the glass, poured himself a drink, and settled down to watch tv until the power went off. Better now than later, he mused on the storm before shutting it out of his mind. He was leaving for Nicaragua in two days and the only thing worse than making the trip was doing it in rotten weather. 

The world was always changing, he reminded himself. He had been behind a few of those changes. He gave it no more thought. Outside, the storm raged and story went on. It wasn't as if the ending mattered or even if there was one.


End file.
